Europe: Part 1-First Half of France

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July 21, 2014 by cookingtofeel

I just got back from a week in France and thought I would get the first part of my trip up on le blog! I had an amazing time with my aunt, uncle, three cousins (Florian, Gillis, and Felix), and Florian’s girlfriend Charlotte! We stayed in a gorgeous gîte in Pouzols-Minervois, a quaint little town not too far from everywhere we visited. We had so much space, a nice pool, and an olive tree and passionfruit tree in the backyard! Plus, I got to wake up and look out at the vineyards and mountains every morning…pure paradise! Here’s a (photo heavy) recap of the first few days of the trip!

We spent Friday night in Beaune so we wouldn’t have one huge day of driving, and we got to see the Hospices de Beaune (a former hospital for the poor, founded in 1443), explore the little town, and enjoy a delicious dinner (wine, escargot, duck, and creme brulee-yum!).

We took a little break from driving on Saturday for lunch and a hike at the Pont du Gard, a giant, preserved Roman aqueduct bridge. It was amazing to see something that old, yet so large and breath-taking!

On Sunday (our first actual day of this trip), we ventured out to Narbonne to see the city, see the cathedral, visit some museums, and enjoy a nice lunch. Also, I seriously can’t get enough of the sky in the south of France. It’s GORGEOUS.

On Monday, we ventured out to Carcassonne, the largest preserved medieval city in Europe. While it was super touristy, which made it irritating at times, it was really cool to see something that’s so giant and old still so well preserved. We went to a few little museum bits and walked around the city and outside of the walls. Gillis also broke me off a piece of the wall, so now I can say I have part of Carcassonne haha! It was a tiring day for sure!

That same day, we made the mountainous drive to Minerve, another ancient city, but smaller. The part I liked most about Minerve was that it was less touristy and the city has two natural bridges (more like caves from the bottom) that we got to walk under since the river is underground during the summer.

Look out for the second part of my trip and a post about our day trip to Spain later this week! And I’ll be posting about Belgium and London after I get back to the United States next week!